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Greetings,
As of today, we are one month away from the start of the 2026 legislative session. Thus, we are traveling to St. Paul more frequently and meetings in-person with our fellow legislators. In addition, we are scheduling meetings with our constituents and various groups who represent the interests of our constituents. If you are interested in setting up a meeting with me in the State Capital complex, please click here to email Hayden Kuiper, who is my shared legislative assistant. During our legislative session, Hayden actually knows my schedule better than I do. He is dynamically rearranging my schedule to support your visit when adverse weather, traffic, or a pop-up legislative huddle can change our planned day. Many times, these changes occur while I am attending committee meetings or while we are on the House floor and cannot respond to a telephone call. So, please reach out during your visit to St. Paul, or for an in-district meeting, and we will work with you to schedule a meeting.
Human Services Reimbursement Delay
I want to sincerely thank my colleague, State Representative Natalie Zeleznikar, for helping me track some of the answers our local healthcare providers needed. For background information, the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) provides reimbursement payments to healthcare providers on a regular schedule based on the healthcare provider submitting properly formatted invoices.
However, we cannot seem to open a news source without hearing about FRAUD. So, recently we were informed that some payments from DHS to our valid Home Care providers suddenly stopped.
Representative Zeleznikar received the following information from a DHS representative.
DHS changed the scheduled billing period without telling the providers or the Home Care Association. This is what I understand:
- The regular billing cycle allowed claims to be submitted until Christmas Day at midnight.
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DHS decided to process the claims and changed the deadline to 12/23 at noon since there were multiple holidays but did not notify the providers. (Note: Many of the providers that contacted me stated that they submitted their claims on December 24th, 2025.)
- Therefore, those who submitted as the schedule stated after 12/23 at noon – midnight on 12/25 were not paid, and this was 40% of the providers. For those like Heartland with 92% of their business is billed to medical assistance. Thus, it is impossible to cover a $400,000+ payroll with zero money received from the State of Minnesota on a billing payment schedule and the outcome is clear.
- Heartland Homecare closes tomorrow in my (Natalie Zeleznikar’s) district from this unfortunate situation, and they serve 32 counties.
- I (Natalie Zeleznikar) spoke with providers in Zimmerman, Two Harbors, Brainerd who all share frustrations as they were told the DHS new systems which Gov Walz directed in October of 2025, would not cause financial hardship. Providers state they are unsure why it is complicated to decipher the great employers from the fraudsters.
- Medical assistance programs have federal matches, and the federal government has always required standard accounting systems showing services billed aligns with services delivered, and the federal concern of dollars withheld could start if the state doesn’t provide this documentation. This is standard documentation that assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and anyone in the caregiving service role would need to adhere to.
- Those who provide services are taking out credit lines, and the Home Care Association has asked DHS to send the payments out to the above 40% before the next payment run as providers need to cover the next payroll. Most service providers I (Natalie) have talked to have extended the credit line as far as they can.
On a separate note, the Minnesota Legislature passed a bill encouraging the adoption of electronic visit verification. This system is designed to prevent fraudulent claims by verifying the home service provider visited the client in need. Thus, we can verify services and visits have been provided in many cases, so we are working to better understand why our service providers are not being reimbursed.
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